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Thank you letter to the Exhibitors from Norma Milner

Dear friends and exhibitors:

First, to those of you who were kind enough to welcome
our Walkers on Thursday who were along the "guesstimated"
route that Lewis took and helped us commemorate his arrival in Philadelphia,
thank you very much for your hospitality. The day wasn't long enough
to visit all of you. I wish it had been. The Walkers were very pleased
to learn so much from you about our city. Of the more than 24 walkers,
there were members of our Chapter, staff members of the Academy of Natural
Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, the Philadelphia Botanical
Club, two police officers from the Civil Affairs office of the City,
and several members of the staff of the "Corps II" mobile
National Park now at Valley Forge. It's there until May 20, with a wonderful
message in murals and tape introducing American Indian tribes who helped
the first Corps of Discovery survive.

Dr. Rick McCourt, a graduate of Lewis and Clark College
in Portland, OR, and curator of the Herbarium at ANS led the walk. Dick
Prestholdt of our Chapter played Lewis and Christian Johnson as Charles
Willson Peale met us at two places on the walk, at ANS, the home of
some of his specimens from the earliest natural history museum, and
at the end of the walk in front of the portraits of the explorers he
painted. More than ten of us enjoyed refreshment at City Tavern and
rested for the return home. Many thanks to all of you who helped and
participated.

I forward this announcement from our webmaster to demonstrate
that all of your exhibits are
on our web site, and we can call attention to them on the home page
as mentioned below as their openings arrive. You can help by reminding
me 2 weeks before you are opening your exhibit. If you can, you could
make copies of the summer's offerings for your visitors and send them
on the way to other exhibits in the City.

I also want to stress that all your exhibits are on
a special web page attached to Philly.com, courtesy of The Philadelphia
Inquirer through the efforts of Tom Gralish, the photographer
who convinced the Inquirer to run that first ever series of six
photographic stories, a great contribution of space in these times.

Please help us show our appreciation to the paper by writing
a thank you and/or comment to editor@phillynews.com
as early as possible. There are many additional photos and web sites
of interest in this extended web site. I suggest that you continue your
own announcements, as the results of any effort cannot be predicted,
of course. And there are many who are still not cyber-based readers.

And again the thanks of the Philadelphia Chapter, Lewis
and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation, for being willing to create a historic
bonanza of information for the public in this 200th year of the visit
of Meriwether Lewis to our city.